Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Service

Search Engine Optimization FAQ

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization is an active practice of achieving website visibility on major search engines. Put into more practical words – prospects find you when they need to find you.

How Can SEO Help Us?

Search engines are “brand-blind” and do not take into consideration offline market influence. Websites among top search results receive organic, targeted visitors who have indicated interest and are essentially saying: “We want your products”, while candidates on top are answering: “We have what you’re looking for.”

It is simple, but a powerful formula, a win-win for both parties – prospects find what they need, businesses make their sales.

How Does it Work?

There are 4 main components to identify.

• Keyword research
• Search Friendly coding
• Search engine copywriting.
• Link Building.

Combined, those practices achieve desired market exposure. Keyword research identifies exact key terms that prospects use to search. Search engine copywriting implements sourced keywords throughout the site, making it relevant to a particular query. Link building gives ranking power to a website, while search-friendly coding eases the job of search automated software.

What is Return on Investment and In How Long?

This depends on 2 key factors.

• Industry
• Competition

For example:

Optimization for “HP pavilion laptop” will take some time, but will pay off quickly due to its vast market. Less competitive - “bridge expansion joints” will be easier to rank for, but might take longer to generate returns due to a smaller market. Competition, demand and initial position analysis must be conducted in order to make accurate, factual estimates.

Why is The Need to Outsource SEO?

SEO can be compared to public relations. It takes professional expertise, teamwork and knowledge to produce convincing campaigns. Equivalent applies to SEO – it takes experience, relationships and strategic thinking to achieve sustainable revenue growth.

Do You Use Spam, Banned Methods?

We only engage in ethnical techniques and never put our clients under any risks.

What is The Cost Associated?

Three factors dictate the cost:

• Initial positioning.
• Demand.
• Number of pages to optimize.
• Number of keywords.

Therefore project magnitude is a leading factor in price determination. Typically our minimum charge is $3000.

Is SEO an Ongoing Process?

Search Engine Optimization is a continuous process due to the dynamic nature of search engine algorithms. Search engines constantly adjust their ranking criteria, hence reactive tweaks and updates must be rolled out swiftly to preserve the spot. Competition plays its part as well, and coordinated counter reaction is key to keeping its impact to minimum.

How Can We Measure SEO Campaign?

Successful SEO speaks for itself, measured in dollar revenues and overall return on investment. Quality has no corners to cut and no “will do” lists, so before our long walk(no running) to top listings succeeds, we update clients with bi-weekly reports and updates on campaign status.

Learn more about our services or visit our home page.

Google Updated it PageRank today April 29th 2008.

Our new pagerank is 5!

Microsoft’s 3 week deadline had expired and now press is anxiously waiting for the next big move. Microsoft threatened to proceed with the hostile take over strategy, however, not one publication mentioned possible scenarios for far.

Charlie Rose interviewed on blog.pmarca.com 2 corporate lawyers who outlined possible scenarios of a takeover. Here is an interesting snippet:

“Yahoo’s best defense against a tender offer is its poison pill. The poison pill works like this: if Microsoft acquires more than 15% of Yahoo without Yahoo board approval, the poison pill kicks in and issues a flood of new Yahoo stock into the market in such a way that Yahoo becomes much more difficult and expensive to buy. Poison pills have been used as defensive mechanisms by public companies against hostile takeovers for years, and the dilution they cause is so huge that no poison pill of this type has ever been triggered.”

If you are interested in corporate strategy and details involved in the process we recomend reading this report.

Related posts:

• April 24th Microhoo Update
• Microsoft Gives Yahoo 3 Weeks and Yahoo Wants More Money
• Microsoft is Serious About Search
• Microsoft is going after search regardless of Yahoo
• CNN Predicts Yahoo - Microsoft will most likely happen
• Google isn’t too happy about Microsoft Yahoo Merger
• Yahoo and News Corporation want to Engage
• Yahoo says no to Microsoft
• Microsoft announced it wants to purchase Yahoo.

Microoho Update.

Search News in the world of search engines and SEO for April 24th 2008.

• MicroHoo: Let The Proxy Fight Begin!

Seattle PI is speculating that Microsoft had begun its proxy fight for Yahoo through its board members. The goal here will be to influence board members to push Yahoo members into accepting $45 billion Microsoft bid. Yahoo says the offer is too small which is true. Not so long ago it was valued at $90 billion. Though those times passed, a solid number 2 is more then half of the past value.

• US Justice Department Scrutinizing GooHoo Paid Search Test

In effort of making Microsoft raise the bid, Yahoo started outsourcing ads to Google. Yahoo has its own ad system - Panama, but it is possible it would abandon Panama and completely outsource search to Google. This puts dangers on search ad industry as essentially Google will own it 90% of the way.

• Yahoo’s Q1 Profits: $542.2 Million

Yahoo Profits to up to $542.2 million as opposed to $142.4 million last quarter. Yahoo stock is back to $27.30 from low $18. It only makes sense for Yahoo to stand its ground and not submit to Microsoft.

Yahoo should Stand its Ground and Get away from Google

As much as I like big blue G, I can’t think of a worse partnership then Yahoo and Google. Google is already flying above 60% market share. Control of Yahoo’s ads would put it in 90% of the search ad market. A monopoly of this kind is dangerous for any industry and law makers should keep their eye wide, wide, wide open. Though Google is simply making steps towards its well being and takes advantage of the situation to the fullest, I would not put 90% control of the market in any hands.

What will Google be like in 10 years?

Google Brain

New 3D features of Google Earth.

Google Earth 4.3

Search engine optimization, also referred to as SEO is set of techniques designed to achieve top search engine rankings on major search properties(Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask). Search engine optimization works on the principle of satisfying search engine algorithms.

Our SEO Quebec services go one step ahead and ensure that your business also shows for clients located precisely in Quebec province and cities such as: Montreal, Gatineau, Sherbrooke, Saguenay, Trois-Rivières and others.

We also ensure that your business is listed in local mapping services such as:

• Google Maps
• Yahoo Maps
• Live Maps(MSN, Microsoft)
• Ask.com Maps

Whenever potential customer from your city or Quebec province searches, he will find your business on major search engines and local mapping services.

Search engine optimization is a step by step, methodical process.

Basic Quebec SEO practices:

• Keyword Research
• Content Creation
• Website Development
• Link Enhancement

What are the Benefits of SEO?

When people use search engines they have clear intent in their mind, a clear course of action. That intent is represented with keywords they use to search. Websites that show up first, benefit from getting highly targeted visitors.

For example: John searched for “rent a car Quebec” on Google. He already made up his mind and expressed his intent to rent a car in Quebec. Websites that show up on top will be getting John’s business, because he wanted to rent a car at the moment.

Search engine optimization is highly effective method of advertising and can help companies both large and small to increase and diversify their revenue sources.

Keyword Research

Quebec search engine optimization starts with keyword research. There is a number of keyword research SEO tools that show exact keywords people used to search. The trick is to find words that have the highest search volume and are the most targeted. If done properly, keyword research will help drive very motivated customers to your website from Quebec province and cities.

For example: “ring” is a very general keyword. If optimized, this word would drive plenty of traffic, but would not attract people who are looking to buy a ring at the moment. Better approach is to optimize for “buy engagement ring Quebec”. There is a clear intention expressed in that keyword, which implies that searcher is looking to buy an engagement ring in Quebec. As result, website optimized for “buy engagement ring Quebec” will generate greater profits than a website optimized for “ring”.

On a larger scale, professional SEO strategy with proper keyword research will identify primary markets and allow your businesses to expand into local, state, national, global and product specific business arenas.

For example: Key phrase “buy engagement ring Quebec” implies that the person wants to buy a ring in Quebec, which is local market, while “buy engagement ring” is a product specific market, since it does not imply to a location.

As a professional search engine optimization company we identify keywords that target all verticals, in local and international markets and optimize for maximum returns.

Search Engine Content Creation

Internet, for the most part, consists of text documents. People learn information by reading websites, be it general research, information about products, news, emails, blogs and articles. Search engines scan billions of websites extracting text strings and keyword combinations. Sites that resemble relevancy of the text in relation to searched keywords have higher chances of appearing among top search results.

For example: if you searched for “Quebec construction company”, you would expect to see those words within the text of the website at least a couple of times. Search engines behave similarly.

Once keyword research identifies primary keywords, those keywords must be implemented within the body of the website copy. This raises relevancy of the page to the search query, easing the job of search engines and making it easier for prospects to find what they need.

This is known as search engine copywriting. Our search engine copywriters create natural looking pages that read both to search engines and people.

Website Development

Search engine optimization website development refers to modification of site elements, such as filenames, HTML tags, image tags, paths, meta tags, code and internal link structure. The goal is to make website friendly to search engines. Modification includes keyword relevancy adjustments within the structure of the website and search visibility improvements within code and structure.

Link Popularity Enhancement

Link enhancement is key ingredient in Quebec search engine optimization. Search engines look at links as votes. If website “optimization.ca” links to “wikipedia.org” search engines consider it a vote by “optimization.ca” for “wikipedia.org”.

The more links a website has, the better. Search engine optimization involves various methods of gathering links, some which are:

• Directory Submissions
• Social Network Marketing
• Link Enhancement

Link development is an ongoing process that must be approached with caution, as gathering too many links over a short period of time can set off red flags on major search engines.

SEO Expert is a search engine optimization company offering professional Quebec SEO solutions. Please contact us to find out how we can benefit your business.

In the last article we talked about getting corporate accounts through trade shows, some media and white papers. It this article lets look at ways catching them online.

I think one of the best conversion optimizers are Future Now, the authors of some good books and helpers with now out of beta Google Website Optimizer! Their structure is very easy to grasp, but hard to implement.

To dumb it down to the basics, the assumption is that there 4 different buyer personalities shopping at different modes who need to see their unique information scent trails. Like dogs we follow sniff trails to the destination we want to get. If I search for SEO, I will want to see “SEO” on that page, not internet marketing. In the architecture of the site trails are seen as links, image links, navigation etc. Future now guys go far beyond and develop whole customers personas playing each scenario visit to the website and probable results.

To fully implement their system you’ll need to engage all people engaged with clients in a company or at least a good portion of them. Since that’s a challenge, I found there is very convenient way of getting just as valuable info. Not as as in depth, but it does the job.

Keyword research tools, provide wealth of information. More here. Also consider Compete.com, Quantcast, and Keyword Spy. I haven’t got my hands on their data yet, but definitely will, as those guys provide 10.000+ keywords per industry!

Another good way is to look at similar industries, since a lot of companies have similar challenges. Keep an eye on SEO industry leaders as some of those guys really get it.

Once you saw time to do some writing and planning. It may be needed to restructure the site.

If you are interested in internet marketing apart from search engine optimization please check following blogs, dedicated to online marketing techniques:

Future Now Blog

Wonderful blog on conversion optimization

Logic+Emotion

Tips for your internet marketing

Imedia Connection

All internet marketing topics covered from a perspective of a marketer

Rain Today Blog

The author must be into rain. Blog focuses on marketing your company to clients

One Degree

The inside scoop on digital marketing and social media for Canadian marketers.

Marketing Charts

A good place to get marketing charts for your articles, research and presentations.

E-Markeing Performance

Articles and tips on SEO, PPC, email and social.

“cartoons drawn on the back of business cards”

A good place to relax.

A while ago Google launched TV advertising platform tightly integrated with Google Adwords. In order to participate in the program all you need is a Google Adwords account.

Once logged go to campaign management and click on “TV Advertising”. From there you will be able to set up advertisements on different channels. Choices are vast. You can select the time and date when your advertisements will be aired.

Upload your video(Google will let you know about dimensions).

Once finished its time for money. Put in a maximum bid per impression and click “OK”. Your advertisement will be served on whatever the channels you selected.

After airing commercial on live TV, Google creates detailed data on:

• Number of people who stayed at a particular channel during your ad
• Number of people who who stayed during entire ad
• Number of people who switched the channel
• % Audience Retained
• $ Cost

You can then measure traffic levels with Google Analytics and see a number of direct visitors. It is also wise to set up conversion goals and see if you get more conversion with increase in direct traffic.

To take ads off air simply remove the bids.

We have not tried the system yet, however, I think it has a bright future. For a small business owner production of TV commercials is reduced to a minimum. Having learned a bit of video editing an out of home mom can produce and air TV ad at minimum cost, since system is bid based.

Find out more here.

Legal SEO Issues

Today Barry of Search Engine Roundtable touched 2 very important topics.

Patent on SEO

A fellah named “Mr. Gambert” wants to patent SEO process to himself, putting SEO industry at high risk. Barry says he was so far rejected, but if he succeeds, all SEOs will have to pay royalty fees to the man. Anyone engaged in SEO in the States should take notice.

Forum discussion at Sphinn and Search Engine Watch Forums. (by Barry)

Website Banning From Search Engines - Illegal?

Another topic is the discussion by Search Engine Watch Forums members on banning websites from search engines and involvement of legal forces. The idea is that search engines should be regulated by government agencies.

I personally believe that bringing government, especially US government to anything related to the internet is a big mistake. One look at how much damage the govt. did to the people of its own country and people from other countries is enough of a proof to keep it away from the internet. The “regulatory” bodies have been unofficially bought off by the big corporations putting more strangle holds on the industries.

I say leave internet free and it prospers, regulate it and it will become another burocratic playground where anything can be bought if you offer enough and talk to the right people.